


enough

by PenroseByAnyOtherName



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/F, Fluff, endgame spoilers, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-08-23 09:39:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20240734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PenroseByAnyOtherName/pseuds/PenroseByAnyOtherName
Summary: Human, she had thought wistfully, staring at smooth and seamless skin. Humanity, it was a concept she did not have, but one she longed for, perhaps unknowingly all her life, perhaps, somehow, longer.More metal than flesh, and it haunted her every moment.





	enough

More metal than flesh, she repeated it day after day.

Just a chunk of scrap metal, just a box of extra parts, just a machine. She was disposable, she was replaceable, she was collateral. What she wasn’t was a person.

Human, she had thought wistfully, staring at smooth and seamless skin. Humanity, it was a concept she did not have, but one she longed for, perhaps unknowingly all her life, perhaps, somehow, longer. 

More metal than flesh, and it haunted her every moment.

The last of the Luphomoids, yet was she even that? Did she even have that most long standing facet of her left? Or was she no longer flesh enough to claim it? Was she instead the first of a different kind, yet what comfort was there in that? If she was the first, she knew she would also be the last.

Metal fingers gliding over what little real skin she had left, she wished to rip it off herself. She hated her in between state, of being too much a person to forsake all mortality, yet too much a machine to claim an identity.

What need did a machine have for feelings? Emotions were beneath her, perhaps so far beneath her she was incapable of them, and yet she had them. She knew she had to, there was no question that when she thought of her sister, there was a spark of something. When she thought of their father, there was a rush of anger that eventually dimmed to quiet sorrow.

When she thought of the bug, she felt a stirring. A movement in her abdomen, a whirring of her inner workings, and she scowled to think it.

Machines did not need feelings, she reminded herself, but a cruel and hungry part asked why not.

Perhaps it was only natural, though what about her was natural? Perhaps, as many of her newer friends - friends, what a stupid word - had offered, it was only human. She was not human, she had argued, but what if humanity was not only a trait of humans?

Humans were confusing, that much she knew. The bug agreed, saying they were too full of feelings they did not want to let out. She had wanted to argue that humans seemed to let out every emotion they had and often with loud and obnoxious pride, but, she had known, she knew nothing of feelings, and the bug seemed to know only feelings.

“Do not touch me,” Nebula often found herself saying, as if it would stop the curious and pale hand. It did, but it did not stop the sad frown and the watery black eyes somehow looking more like they were on the verge of tears.

“I only want to help,” the young thing seemed to insist every time, hand still hovering over Nebula’s arm.

“I do not need help,” Nebula would always reply, not meaning to sound so harsh but unable to stop herself, even if it made the little thing wince and frown.

“You look sad,” Mantis would say, or, “You look pained.”

There was nothing she could say to that.

A machine could not feel, that was what she had told herself again and again. A machine could not feel, did not need to feel, and what was she but a machine?

A person, some small part of her cried out.

No, not a person. Not anymore. She was a monster, a machine, a traitor, even if she did not want to be. All of those thing, so how could she feel? Yet, how could she not, the bug would argue? How could she not ache for her losses, yearn for what was taken from her, hate those who hurt her, love those who helped her?

“I do,” the bug would say, in her small not quite right voice. “I hurt for everyone I have lost, I want back what he took from me, I hate him, but I love you all, for saving me.”

“You feel too much,” Nebula would say.

“No,” Mantis would shake her head, antennae bobbing almost comically. “I feel enough.”

Enough, what a strange concept. That there was a capacity for feeling, and one could feel too little or too much or just enough. She must have felt too little, Nebula supposed, even as the emotions beat at her chest. It would not make her feel any better to admit she felt too much.

When the bug got close to touching her, she understood the idea of feeling enough.

She would not, however, allow her more than to simply get close.

-

“I could make you feel joy.”

Nebula remained silent, staring ahead and ignoring the bug’s little whisper.

“Or calm.” 

That she certainly considered, but still she recoiled at the first hint of a touch. She was already calm, she assured herself and the bug. What about her gave the impression she was not calm?

“Your hands are fists and you look like you might strike me,” she replied coolly.

“Does that not scare you?” Nebula rasped, seeing the bug’s stature had not changed and she still reached for her.

“No,” said Mantis, shaking her head and still smiling pleasantly. “I have been hit before.”

Nebula relaxed her posture and unfurled her fists.

“So have I.”

-

It was not the greatest of starts, but it was a start all the same.

The bug did not push like Gamora had, asking her to talk about her feelings. Instead she only asked her to not hide them, which was still a stretch from the usual for her, but at least it was not a demand.

The bug did not demand anything of anyone, but instead suggested. She spoke with fact and certainty, but a hesitance. She would not demand anything of anyone, even to her detriment.

Nebula was not so fond of that.

“He hurt you,” Nebula said, with her usual sneer but a touch more anger.

“Yes,” said the bug.

“So hurt him, make him know he hurt you so he does not do it again.”

“No, that would not help,” the bug shook her pretty head, antenna shaking with it.

“It would teach him not to do it again,” Nebula told her, bluntly.

“I could ask him not to,” Mantis suggested.

“No,” Nebula said it firmly and with conviction. “Show him.”

“I do not think violence will solve it,” Mantis insisted quietly, almost fearful of the sentiment going unapproved.

“Then tell him, do not ask. Tell him not to do it again, or there will be consequences,” Nebula balled her hand into a fist, before quickly letting it go.

“I will try,” Mantis promised her with that same smile that made Nebula’s mechanics whir and buzz with warmth.

Looking down so as not to make eye contact, Nebula nodded. “Don’t let them hurt you.”

“I will not, but I will not hurt them,” Mantis reached to touch her but was denied. “Thank you, Nebula.”

It would only be that night that Nebula realised it was the first time Mantis had said her name.

-

She had started to wonder why it was the bug would not hurt people.

A sense of honour? But bugs did not have honour, and if she had honour she would not look so near tears as she often did. Such an idea ruled out pride or dignity.

She wanted to ask her why, and more than that she wanted to ask her why now did she herself find it harder and harder to lash out in anger around her. She needed to be touching her to alter her emotions, she knew that, and she made sure not to touch the bug at all costs. Maybe she was stronger than she let on. Maybe it was a passive effect.

Maybe she was growing soft, and Nebula frowned at the thought.  
-

“Who hit you?”

The question was blunt, and had Gamora heard it she would have scolded her.

Mantis seemed not to mind, as her reply was equally blunt. “Ego.”

“Why?” Nebula kept her arms close to herself, not wanting the girl to be able to reach out and touch her.

“He did not like what I did sometimes, if I was too slow or asked too much,” Mants said it plainly, as if it did not pain her greatly to speak of it.

“I understand,” Nebula looked at her with a frown. “Are you glad he’s dead?”

“I am, but it does me no good to dwell on his death.”

Nebula gave a grunt and a nod.

“You dwell on your father’s death,” Mantis said, knowingly.

“I,” Nebula stopped herself, even with the lie half on her tongue. “Not as much as hers.”

Moving so they were sitting face to face, Mantis put her hands in her lap and gave Nebula a serious look. “She loved you.”

“She was the only one that ever did,” Nebula whispered, eyes cast down at those gently folded hands. They stayed still and did not reach for her.

“I love you,” Mantis said, with all the sweet innocence of a child.

“You love everything,” Nebula rebuffed, quickly.

“Not everything, but I choose to focus on the love,” Mantis stood up and pulled her hands in. “I do not blame you, though, for choosing to focus on hatred. You lost more than any of us.”

Nebula wondered how she knew what she was feeling without ever touching her.

-

The next time they were alone, Nebula could not stay silent. “I’m not like him.”

“Who are you not like?”

“Ego, Thanos, either of them,” Nebula felt her face getting warmer and she scowled.

“I know that,” Mantis assured her.

“Good,” Nebula nodded and turned to go, before turning back around. “I’m not violent just to be violent.”

“I know,” Mantis repeated.

“And I would never hurt you,” Nebula said, making sure not to make her hands into fists, even as she felt herself becoming heated and frantic.

“I trust that,” said Mantis in return, nodding her head.

“Good,” Nebula nodded again, giving her a serious look.

She was almost gone when she heard that tiny voice calling after her. “You are not a monster.”

There was nothing she could say to that, but still she stopped, turning back around so she could face her. There was no dishonesty in those large watery eyes and she felt her body react almost painfully to it. How something so sweet could think her anything other than a monster, she did not know.

“No,” said Nebula, finally, harshly. “I’m only a machine.”

-

None of them understood what she had lost. 

They had all lost Gamora, Quill insisted, snarling and scowling as if him losing her meant anything. When Nebula had told him he lost nothing, it had turned to fists, and for the first time, Quill had won, by virtue of Nebula not throwing a single punch. Mantis had been watching, and she had not dared.

They had not lost what she had lost. They had not lost five years to grief and misery and mourning. They had not seen her again, they did not get the chance to tell her all the things they never said only to lose her again, they did not have to lose her again. Not for a second time, or even a third, but for the last of so many uncountable, unquantifiable times. And what she lost was more than some sad excuse for a sexual partner. She had lost her sister, and so soon after getting her back.

More than anything, she still blamed herself.

It should have been her, she told herself again and again, but it never could have been. She would not have been a suitable sacrifice in her place. She tried to put the thought out of her mind, as it did her no good trying to determine whether or not it was because she was not loved, or because she was too much a machine to die.

It would not do to dwell on the hate, and for once Nebula knew it was true. What she could dwell on instead was the relief of at least having one of them back. 

-

They were very rarely alone, which was not terrible. It meant less time spent avoiding those white little hands and black watery eyes. There was no fear of confronting feelings long kept stamped down. Feelings she had crushed her entire life, and yet also new feelings, that she had had to more recently learn to crush.

Crush, that was the word the boy-Peter had used to describe it. Why she had opened up to him, she did not know, but they had both lost someone, and it had been a long day. Funerals were not something she was familiar with, yet it seemed he was already too familiar with them. They had talked, and he had expressed worry for her. She had assured him she was strong, and that in losing much she had regained at least one thing she valued.

What was that, he had asked, all young uncertainty and wide eyed curiosity. Maybe he thought it something cosmic or grand, coming from an alien like her.

Maybe he was right.

A woman, she had said, who she cared very much about. He had nodded sagely, as if he understood. He was waiting to see if the girl he liked had been snapped as well, his crush, he had called her, and Nebula wondered if the boy-Peter thought his Earth girl equivalent to her bug.

She would not crush her, she told him, and he had laughed and smiled until his eyes crinkled, though soon after more tears fell from the corners.

He did not hide his tears, and he did not make her hide hers.

Nebula liked the boy-Peter much more than Quill.

-

A gentle hand finally touched her own.

It was not Mantis’s fault, though she recoiled in fear as though it was, but deliberate on Nebula’s part.

“I do not feel,” Nebula insisted, calm and lying. “Machines do not feel.”

Somewhere, she knew it would only prove Mantis’s point, and there, she knew it would make the woman smile. The touch was gentle, unnerving, and but ultimately made Nebula light up with feeling. Not because the empath made it so, but because it was Mantis touching her, and they had never touched before.

“You feel,” Mantis assured her, breathlessly. “You feel so much, everything, more than any other person I have ever met.”

Nebula had had her response planned. She wanted to say that she felt it all for her, a romantic gesture, and sweet considering what they were. But how Mantis said it stopped her, and she found she could not speak.

Any other person, thought Nebula, replaying the words in her head again and again.

Person.

“Mantis,” Nebula said, voice rasping.

“It is okay, Nebula,” Mantis mimicked her use of names, and she smiled sweetly, almost shyly for her.

“I,” Nebula could not say it, no matter how hard she tried.

“You do not need to say it, I know,” Mantis whispered, keeping her voice low. “I love you.”

“You love everything,” Nebula retorted, weakly.

“I love you,” Mantis repeated as she held Nebula’s hands.

“You can’t love a machine,” she insisted, though again her voice lacked power or command.

“That is because machines can not feel,” Mantis held her hands up to Nebula’s cheeks, touching them when no resistance was shown. “You are not a machine.”

-

She hated thinking about how it must feel for her, to hold a hand that was cold and lifeless, not real flesh. It disgusted her, and she pitied her even as she held tighter to the small flesh hand in her own.

“I used to be whole,” Nebula argued, though who or what she was arguing she no longer knew.

“You still are,” said Mantis. “You are not defined by your hatred. You do not have to be.”

“What hurt me defines me,” Nebula said, as though that were obvious.

“It should not be,” Mantis shook her head, looking at their intertwined hands. “Let what you love define you, you love so much.”

“I do not,” Nebula lied, even knowing Mantis could see through it.

“You do, I feel it whenever I touch you,” Mantis said. “You love Gamora, and you love the thrill of fighting, and fresh fruit, and the way the stars look from Earth. You love the way my antenna glow, and how it feels to be part of a team. You love so much.”

“You forgot something,” Nebul reminded her, coy and gentle.

“No, I did not forget. I only thought it would sound boastful,” Mantis smiled as she said it.

-

Nebula so rarely understood what it meant to feel like a person. Since she was young she had felt like a commodity. Fights to the death, nameless, faceless siblings who meant nothing to her with only the familiar green face of Gamora to change that, her humanity - as she had decided she did have humanity, once - stripped away a piece of flesh at a time. She had never been a person, only an object, then a monster, then a machine, and a dozen things between.

Mantis made her feel like a person.

The way she touched her, in intimate privacy or in front of others, reminded her that she was still flesh. She was still a person, and the parts of her that were metal were not less than those that were flesh and bone and muscle. They could feel. They could make Mantis feel.

Private intimacy was when Nebula liked her best. There was no hiding or nervousness, and she could touch and feel as much as she needed to, as little as she needed to, but it was always enough.


End file.
